Stargate Atlantis Season 4 Episode 13 Quarantine
by Janus2
Summary: AU after This Mortal Coil. The City enters a quarantine and McKay and Marks have to deal with an unfortunate decision regarding the safety of the population.
1. Chapter 1

**Stargate Atlantis**

**04x11**

**Quarantine**

Rodney looked up from his tablet as he ducked under the wire mesh hanging from the ceiling of the traveller ship, Rodney idly wondered exactly why he had volunteered for this mission. He had always preferred theory to practical work, calculations rather than risky field work, and yet now he found that he couldn't stay behind in the lab why people risked their lives.

"Hey Rodney, ready for the test?" Somehow Laura Cadman had sidled up next to him in the corridor, Rodney sighed, just what he needed, Elizabeth dead, the Asuran replicators and wraith destroying half the galaxy in their war, that despite Laura's reassurance was _definitely _his fault, whether or not he knew what would happen in the crossfire, and then there was Laura herself, she completely intrigued him creeped him out and drew him in all at the same time, he saw her studying him out of the corner of his eyes. Rodney stopped when he felt her hand on his arm. "Look, Rodney, I know that look; IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT."

Laura didn't emphasise her words, she didn't need to, the conviction behind them was enough to make Rodney raise his eyes from the tablet, he looked into her eyes biting back a scathing retort, after all she had put up with his volatile temper when even Radek couldn't take it anymore.

"I know that, it's just that…" Rodney stopped, throughout his life he'd learnt the hard way that people didn't like him, the tolerated him if they had to, that if you let someone in they'll only hurt you, he'd learnt that the hard way from his parents, and yet here he found himself; ready to bear his burdens onto Cadman.

He again looked into her eyes, trying to convey his thoughts without saying them. Laura smiled in response removing her hand as the two began to walk to the bridge for the breakout, Laura kept glancing at Rodney. Laura herself had only been in the marines for a short time before being posted to Atlantis, but her parents had been military and her both grandfathers had fought in the second world war, and they'd all had that look in their eyes, were they'd seen far too much for one, or any lifetime, she'd seen that look in Rodney's eyes, whether he knew it, let alone liked it or not, he was a soldier of a kind like everyone else on the Atlantis expedition had become.

* * *

Katana Labrea sat in the captain's chair on the larger traveller cruiser, while she was sceptical of Larrin's plans to join with the humans from Earth who inhabited the city of the Ancestors she had to admit the weapons platform based on Asgard technology, or so they'd said, were extremely powerful and certainly even the odds a little against the wraith. Katana felt uneasy in the larger cruiser, she preferred her own generational ship, that's she'd brought Mila with her to the cruiser, she knew that the human scientist McKay had taken severe issue about her safety standards and had steered clear of the engine room since.

Katana checked her displays, they were only a few minutes away from reverting to normal space, Katana looked up to see McKay and Lieutenant Cadman entered the bridge, the two of them were like clockwork when they wanted to be.

"We ready?" it was McKay who looked at her, Katana nodded as she began drop out preparations.

McKay and Cadman moved to the console they'd installed to control the weapons array. It was made of a seamless construction with rounded arc curves and angular runes and crystal stones to manipulate the system functions. Katana phased out the two made some last minute checks over the new systems.

* * *

The Asuran light cruiser _Avenger _was one of the oldest ships in the Asuran military, she'd been constructed during the last Asuran-wraith war, while over ships had been decommissioned over the millennia the _Avenger _had been kept in service since. Unlike other ships _Avenger _was named its first mission rather than before being launched, there'd been a wraith attack on Asuras, their hive ships had made kamikaze runs on the planet wreaking havoc on the planet. General, then _Commander_ Korceanat had stolen the then uncompleted and unnamed _Avenger _and attacked the wraith shipyards, destroying them in turn.

The ship had become a symbol of Asuran military might against their enemies, that was until it'd engaged the Tau'ri ship _Apollo _after their team had stolen a potentia and activated the attack command. As much as he hated to admit it the _Avenger's _current commander was now Korceanat, he'd made the same hubris as the Lanteans, he'd underestimated his opponent, without full scans he didn't realise the Asgard shield the Lanteans allies had given the Tau'ri were resistant to drone weapons and had launched only minimal salvos allowing them to escape from their raid.

As such the _Avenger's _commander was caught off guard when the traveller ship exited hyperspace.

The traveller cruiser headed towards the _Avenger _at its maximum speed.

Katana looked up at the two tau'ri.

"It's now or never,"

McKay and Cadman nodded in response sliding the control stone to the correct rune.

From the ship's bow in response to McKay and Cadman's commands a series of blue pulses of energy fired, the plasma made its way across the vast distance hitting the _Avenger _just as she raised her shields, scoring two direct hits to the hull leaving large carbon scorch marks and imparting a certain amount of kinetic energy to the vessel.

"We scored two hits before the raised their shields," McKay reported from his tablet hooked up to the Asgard data crystals.

"And I can confirm damage to the Asurans shields, our four direct hits have caused their shields to drop to 90%." Cadman added, the two of them grinning at each other.

"Keep firing then,"

They both turned shocked at Katana's order.

"But, that's not the mission, we're just here to test whether they work," McKay started, he saw Laura feeling for her side-arm in the corner of his eye, while the weapon seemed to work he didn't want to enter battle on the first test of a brand new weapons platform.

"Maybe not yours, but you're not the ones whose fate depends on this! You can just go back to your own galaxy; your fate doesn't depend on this! Fire again."

McKay was taken aback by the bitterness in her tone surprising him, he nodded in response firing the weapons again as the bridge shock with the volley of _Avenger's _drones impacted, exploding against Marks shields, and they too worked.

The two ships began to trade fire, the traveller particle canons fired red bursts which had no effect on the orange tinted bubble around the _Avenger. _A series of turrets returned fire along with drones.

The traveller ship rolled so its forward Asgard pulse array was in the direction firing with an amount of fire power equal to that of an Asgard O'Neill class warship.

Sparks fell from the ceiling and Laura kept herself up against the Asgard console. "The Asurans and I have a very different idea about anti-fighter batteries,"

Rodney was jolted into her as he responded.

"Why?"

"Those batteries are at least twice the yield of the most power full Goa'uld weapons Anubis had on his flagship,"

As the ship jolted again McKay turned to Katana.

"We have to abort now, we've got the weapons working, we can build more and install them and come back, but this isn't a fight we can win," McKay tried to reason with her, he didn't even flinch at Katana's glare. "Listen to me no one wants to stop the Asurans as much as me,"

She scoffed at that.

"I was held captive and tortured by them," McKay shouted gaining her attention.

"We have to leave now," Laura told Katana who finally saw sense and ordered a retreat.

* * *

Back in Atlantis Sam headed away from a meeting with Larrin into one of the transporters, as she was about to touch the screen she held an accented voice call for her to hold it, Sam waited as Radek came running in. He apologised as Sam moved to activate when the screen slid shut, the door slammed shut and an alarm flared across the city

* * *

Shepperd found Teyla in McKay's lab, her pregnancy was clearly showing and she was still mad at him for putting her off the team after she told him about her pregnancy.

"Look, Teyla, I know you don't-"

Shepperd stopped as the quarantine alarm flared and the door to the lab slammed shut.

* * *

Ronan entered the infirmary holding a towel to his head, Dr Keller looked up and sighed, why he couldn't just ask her out.

She walked towards him gesturing to one of the beds as the infirmary doors slammed shut and the city-wide quarantine alarm sounded.

* * *

While up in orbit on the Odyssey Marks looked down at his display as Atlantis activated jamming systems blocking the sensors and a subspace beacon talking about a quarantine and a pathogen started to broadcast, overall he had only one thing to say.

"_What the hell,"_


	2. Chapter 2

Sam swore as her hands against the door panels, she pulled away and turned to Radek.

"Give me your tablet," Sam ordered already taking the tablet when Radek responded.

"That won't give you control, it doesn't have enough RAM," Radek was unused to dealing with Sam when in her scientist mode, she was either Elizabeth's replacement, the SG-1 legend or McKay's fantasy, although Radek had to admit he'd not idolised her since she came to the city.

"I know, I don't want to control Atlantis' entire operating system, I just want to access one of McKay's backdoors," Sam was already expertly interfacing the tablet with computers.

"McKay's backdoors?"

Sam nodded while she was probing one of the system backdoors.

"When I was at the SGC I made a lot of backdoors into the system to let me back into the system in case of a foothold situation, and loath I am to say it I know some of how Rodney's mind works. When I first arrived on Atlantis I made him tell me about all of his backdoors into the system."

"How did you force McKay to do anything?" Radek was now asking with rapt attention, is Carter had a way to control McKay the entire planet deserved to know.

"Well technically the backdoors in the system are illegal, I basically blackmailed him because he knew I'd find at least one, I don't know if he actually thought I'd give him up, but he knew I'd be able to find at least one."

Radek looked downcast; Sam had really got his hopes up. He looked up when Sam gave a cry of satisfaction. Radek looked over his shoulder to see an access protocol inside the mainframe that was clearly McKay's work. Sam entered a series of codes opening the city viral containment controls.

"Huh, according to this we're in level five quarantine lockdown," Sam looked up at the ceiling realising that it would only be a matter of time before the suffocated.

* * *

Guide heard the alarms and looked to the guards outside his cell as the doors slammed shut, he could already feel Seeker reaching out telepathically to the guards.

*Stop that!* Guide roared at Seeker startling the cleverman out of his attention. *Getting out won't do any good that was a quarantine, for all we know we could be killed just like the humans*

Seeker growled in response but pulled back into his cell.

* * *

Teyla sat at one of McKay's computers while John sat at the other, the atmosphere in the room was awkward to say the least, John seemed to be treating her as women on Earth treated her; that is to molly-coddle her, tip-toe around her and treat her like she was made from glass. Teyla saw something flash at the corner of her screen.

"Someone's accessing the mainframe passed one of Rodney's programs," She heard John get up and walk to her shoulder in the background.

"It's either Carter or Zelinka, can you get in too?" John was already tracing the computer code in his head, John had originally only joined the air force to get through school following his mom's divorce, however something very few people knew was that he could have been in MENSA.

Teyla slipped away and John started typing furiously at the computer. After a while John stopped.

"Huh?"

"John what is it?" Teyla looked at him curious; he never seemed to be the computer type.

"The whole system is crawling with backdoors into the system; Rodney probably added them so he'd be able to get in." John typed furiously for a few seconds. "I've found the backdoor being used."

"Can you get in?"

John nodded not turning away from the screen. "Yes, possibly, maybe…"

* * *

Chuck furiously pressed the ancient controls and swore again.

"Anything?" It was Major Lorne, who'd been up in the console room just having returned from an off world mission.

Chuck shook his head.

* * *

Ronan's hands and arms burned as he tried to pull the bulkhead door apart.

"That's not going to work," Jennifer said walking towards the Satedan warrior.

"Yeah, well it's better than sitting around doing nothing,"

"We don't have to sit around doing nothing that was quarantine, which means that people will be sick and that means that they will still be sick people coming in here soon we can get ready."

Jennifer walked away from Ronan leaving him little choice but to continue a futile effort to wedge open the doors or follow her….

* * *

"Yes," John cried out bringing Teyla over to him, he looked over his shoulder at her. "I'm in.

"You broke into one of Rodney's backdoors?" Teyla was surprised, as to her Dr McKay seemed to be the smartest person she'd ever met beside the Asgard Hermiod.

John nodded in response elaborating. "The first level was just a simple stream cipher ... a symmetric pseudorandom one at that, pretty easy to break with the right program. Now the three levels after that? They were hard, but now I'm in and…"

"What is it?"

* * *

"Oh boy, that's bad," Sam said under her breath as she read the tablet's screen, she now knew what Rodney was complaining about when he was talking about ridiculously small touchpads.

"What is it…" Radek stopped as he looked over her shoulder, before breaking into an impressive array of Czech curses.

Sam nodded. "I'm going to try to turn it off,"

Radek decided to chime in. "You can uses the emergency crystal bank."

Sam only took a second to realise what he meant.

"Radek wait!"

But she was too late, he'd already opened the crystal tray causing the crystal wafers to spark and die, exploding outwards with tiny sharp fragments of crystals. Sam's military training took over and she pulled Radek behind her and turned so her back was to the explosion to shield them both from the shrapnel, however in the process she'd dropped the tablet computer smashing on the floor.

* * *

Rodney lay on the bed in his quarters on the traveller cruiser, their battle with the Asuran cruiser and the resulting confrontation with the traveller captain had left him rattled him, as much as he'd like to deny it what she'd said had a grain of truth. Rodney knew that while Sam and John would do all they could for the people in this galaxy he also knew that the IOA had overall authority over the Atlantis command and he also knew that it was made up of some very bad people who just might sign off a whole galaxy of people because of a cost.

Rodney was so lost in his mussing that he didn't notice the door opening into the room, he didn't even realise someone come in until Laura sat down beside him on the bed.

"Rodney, you okay?"

He dimly nodded and tried to ignore her.

"Rodney, you may be able to fool your friends into thinking you're fine, but you're not. We shared a head remember."

"I thought we agreed never to discuss that!" Rodney turned his head to see her smirk and raise her eyebrows at him. Rodney rolled his eyes and smirked in response.

"I just mean I know you better than nearly anyone else, _Meredith_," Rodney's eyes snapped to her as she used his first name, the way she'd said it was different from when Shepperd did, she wasn't mocking him and the way she said it made it actually sound good and secretly he didn't think he'd mind her using that name, not that he'd ever mention that. "I know you're not fine, if you need someone to talk to you can talk to me, you know you can trust me I haven't revealed anything I found out when I shared your body."

Laura took one of his hands in hers, he sighed before starting to talk.

"It's just I can't help but think about the IOA, one of the things you know is that they're not good people on that group. I mean Colonel Chekov was a good man; I'd meet and worked with him in Russia on their naquadah research. When the _Korolev _was destroyed and he was killed he was replaced by Russian officer who isn't on-board with the whole betterment of humanity deal like Chekov became through working with the SGC and the others are just a group of politicians like that rat Kinsey and I can't help thinking that they'll decide that the expedition is too costly and want to pull out. On top of that Katie and I broke up a few weeks ago, saying that the pressure the threat of impending death wasn't what she signed on for, she was a botanist for god's sake, she studied plants! And the thing that's got me the most about that is more than ever I think she's right, these past few months we've been little more than going through the motions and a feel just completely alone."

"Rodney you're not alone," Laura's voice was calming and she kept trying to make him meet her eyes.

Rodney scoffed. "Of course I am, I'm petty arrogant and bad with people, I'm only tolerated because I'm a genius, even my parents knew that," Rodney looked down at his hands and was caught off guard when Laura brought him in for a hug.

"Rodney listen to me very clearly you are not alone, you have friends, like John, Teyla, Ronan, even Radek, we're all your friends and I can tell you I tolerate you in no way because of your intelligence. I like you for who you are underneath that arrogance and pettiness, the guy who looks out and cares for his team, a guy who may not be a saint like Dr Jackson but a guy who genuinely cares about the people around him and does what he can to save them not for thanks."

She pulled back and looked into his eyes.

"_Dr McKay, Lieutenant Cadman please report to the bridge,"_

At the voice from the PA the two Tau'ri moved apart blushing slightly as they made their way up to the command deck.

* * *

Steven Caldwell looked up from his chair as Colonel Ellis paced the room, Caldwell was beginning to seriously dislike the man, his opinion of the guy seemed to be an opposite of who he'd reacted to Shepperd. When he'd first met him he didn't like him much, or that may have been the Goa'uld parasite that was gunning for Atlantis and Shepperd's job, but over time and after the parasite had been removed Steven had begun to see that the insubordinate streak in the guy was due to his care for his friends and those under his command, _you don't leave a man behind,_ as much as he'd deny it Caldwell could confidently and truthfully say that he had a respect for the guy. While when he met Abe Ellis he'd initially thought him to be nothing but an exemplary air force officer, however the more he saw the less that impression remained, he was impatient, it took Sam nearly confining him to his ship to rein him in.

"Will you just sit down and stay calm Colonel, you can't do anything walking around this room except wear out you shoes," Steven glared daggers at Ellis who looked round at the similar glares on the faces of the traveller captains and Colonel Davidson.

He reluctantly made his way to his seat and dropped unceremoniously into it.

The traveller leader Larrin leant forward on her elbows.

"Thank you Colonel Caldwell, I was fearing a diplomatic incident over this," she was still glaring at Ellis. "Are you sure there's nothing we can do from here."

Steven shook his head. "That was the quarantine alarm, even if we get out we have no way of knowing if it's safe, our best bet is to wait for Shepperd, if I know anything about him it's that he won't just leave us down here." _If he can_. Caldwell silently added.

"I think that Caldwell is right, while we here we might as well finish negotiating this treaty." Colonel Davidson was leaning forward opening his folder.

* * *

"What is it?" Rodney and Laura entered the bridge of the traveller cruiser and looked out at the blue streaks of the conduit, anywhere over than at Lieutenant Cad- _Laura._

"We've just entered subspace communications range and detected this," Katana passed them a traveller computer tablet.

Laura took the device while sidling up to Rodney so they could both see it.

"Crap,"

Laura turned to Rodney, her golden-red hair trailing along his arms as she looked him in the eye.

"Couldn't put it better myself."

For on that tablet read an automated message from Atlantis' quarantine system, warning of a pathogen and the cities quarantine, the message also happened to be broadcasting their location to half the galaxy.

* * *

John furiously typed at the laptop, no matter what he did he did he couldn't find a way to shut down the subspace transmitter without triggering the final sequence in the quarantine system when it detected a breach culminating in the activation of the city self-destruct, and that was something to be avoided.

"Gah!" John quickly backed out of the system log, he'd have to keep clear of that specific programing matrix, if he pressed to hard enough he'd probably trigger the self-destruct, John decided to try something else and opened the internal biometric service logs to try to find the starting place of whatever pathogen had triggered the quarantine.

"What are you doing?" Teyla was once at his shoulder.

"I'm trying to find were the pathogen that caused the quarantine originated, to see what-" John frowned and typed furiously for another minute before pulling back. "There isn't any pathogen, at all the systems aren't showing any type of infection or irregularities in the biometric data, I mean I'm no biologist but according to this data there are no differences."

"Then what triggered the system?"

"I don't know," John entered a code McKay had shown him to check for any system irregularities in the main system, on the screen a schematic of Atlantis resolved into three dimensions zooming out to show a visual distortion moving towards and over the city. John ran several diagnostics and confirmed what he was seeing on the sensor feed.

"There is no outbreak, the quarantine was caused by an ion storm, it triggered the quarantine protocols,"

"Can you turn it off?"

John shook his head, "not from here,"

The room suddenly shook; deep vibrations ran through the floor as the sound of an explosion ripped through the tower.

* * *

Major Kevin Marks looked out on Atlantis sitting in the command chair, he found himself beginning to dread a promotion, and Atlantis hadn't called back in hours and was broadcasting a message revealing their location to the entire galaxy.

"Major Norris, what's the status of our jamming of Atlantis' signal?" Kevin would have preferred to check himself but that would mean checking showing indecision and doubt in the crew's abilities, he knew that the _Odyssey _had the best crew and were using the Asgard core to generate a jamming field on Atlantis' subspace transmission, they'd been able to block most of the transmission, but some was still getting through.

"18% of the signal is still transmitting and the jamming is already at 100%" Norris didn't look up from his console.

"What's the status of _Daedalus _and _Apollo_?" Marks had to know whether Atlantis' position could be defended, the _Daedalus _and _Apollo _were the most powerful ships beside the _Odyssey _and the Lantean warship, of which was still at less than 50% main power despite both traveller and Tau'ri best efforts.

"The _Apollo's _shield generators have been rebuilt from scratch and aren't ready to be deployed and _Daedalus _has only half of her shield emitters online." Norris looked bleak as he looked up at his operational superior.

Kevin screwed his eyes shut, _he had no choice. _"Bring online the Asgard plasma beams, I want a precise yield calculation to only disable the subspace transceiver, no damage."

Everyone stared at him from whatever station they manned.

"Now people that's an order!"

The crew got to work, Kevin was relieved, if they'd challenged his orders he wouldn't have the heart to argue with them.

* * *

Rodney was pacing around like a caged animal, his pessimistic mind kept showing images of Ronan fighting with a disease right up until the end crying out in rage against the dying of the light, John doing his best to keep everyone lively and fighting up till he himself succumbed, Radek frantically working to find some way to use the cities systems to slow the pathogen, and Sam herself going down fighting as the last person on Atlantis.

Rodney savagely shook his head to get rid of the images; he headed up to the bridge to find Laura walking to meet him.

"Laura, how far are we?" Rodney gently took hold of her arm and turned her around to walk by his side.

"That's what I came to talk to you about, there's a ship approaching to intercept us in hyperspace," Laura looked as Rodney's mind moved back to the present all the worst case scenarios she knew he'd be thinking of.

"Wraith or Asuran?"

Laura was about to respond as the traveller cruiser abruptly dropped out of hyperspace. The duo ran into the bridge.

"What happened, did that teenagers poor safety standards cause the engines to blow?"

Laura smirked at Rodney's snarky comment on the young traveller engineer, Katana looked at Rodney and sent a death glare, it was clear that she liked the teenager.

"Captain we are detecting a ship incoming," The ship listed heavily to the starboard as the interior flashed aquamarine blue as something impacted the shields. "It's the same Asuran cruiser."

The _Avenger _pressed its engines forward and fired a salvo of drones at projected weak points between overlapping shield emitters. As the _Avenger _rolled passed the traveller ship's bow it was hit by a burst of blue plasma. One of the point defence batteries swerved to face the forward navigational thruster; it fired a series of orange bursts in quick succession against the blue shields of the enemy ship.

"You know you were right about those weapons?" Rodney shouted at Laura across the cacophony of exploding conduits as the ships systems overloaded. Laura turned to face him and smiled, somehow despite the situation Rodney smiled back before moving his hand to an Asgard control stone. "It looks like we're fighting after all."

"Mila, I need the hyperdrive!" Katana shouted down the comms as she turned to Laura and Rodney, focus your fire on their hyperdrives."

Rodney nodded as he gestured to the helm officer to keep the bow facing the Asuran ship.

The _Avenger _speed at the traveller vessel firing all of its plasma turrets at the traveller ship, the Asuran commander monitored the energy levels before firing off a trio of drones, the first hit the bow while the second two rotated helically around the ship before hitting the aft section, while six blue bolts collided with the _Avenger's _forward shields, the last one breaking through causing the _Avenger _to break off its attack run.

"Aft shields at 35%!"

Rodney vaguely heard someone cry out as he and Laura fought to keep the Asuran ship in their sights. He heard the teenage engineer call out that the hyperdrive was back up.

The _Avenger _spun on its axis firing its orange bolts at a single patch of shield causing it to fall open, two hits striking the brittle hull armour.

"Shields down!"

Katana looked desperate. "Mila get us out of here!"

Rodney grabbed Laura's hand as the ship listed to the side, atmosphere leaking as it entered hyperspace.

* * *

"Sir, I have a firing solution on the transceiver." Norris said from his console.

Kevin took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

"Fire."

A blue stream of superheated gas leapt from the middle of the ships 'neck' section, the blue bolt speed down through the atmosphere hitting one of the graceful silver towers of Atlantis exploding outwards in a fire ball as the subspace array was destroyed.


	3. Chapter 3

"Anything?" Lorne looked over Chuck's shoulder; Chuck nodded in response not looking up.

"I've restored life support to this section, but nothing else,"

"Keep trying,"

As Lorne walked away the floor suddenly moved up to meet him as an explosion raged in the background, he pulled himself up leaning heavily on one of the consoles.

"What was that?"

Chuck moved to second laptop. "I think that was the subspace transceiver, it's gone,"

Lorne nodded realising that Major Marks must have taken it out from orbit to avoid alerting the wraith or Asurans to their location, his mussing was interrupted when all of the consoles at once shut down and the city self-destruct alarm began to ring across the city.

"What's going on?" Lorne knew the Atlantis exhibition couldn't have a normal day, but couldn't they have anything even vaguely resembling a quiet day.

"I'm guessing that when the subspace transceiver was destroyed the computer thought that quarantine had been breached and activated the self-destruct as a last gap measure to stop a pathogen."

* * *

As soon as John heard the self-destruct alarm started he flared into action pulling one of McKay's wireless tablets into his arms and loading up the correct protocals.

"Teyla stay here,"

John made his way to the door before he heard Teyla's response.

"Not a chance,"

John hated doing this but it was for her own good.

"Teyla you're pregnant,"

John said it as if it explained everything, while Teyla fixed him with a glare that made him which the self-destruct would blow then and there.

"So what? Does that mean anything other than I'm with child. I'm going."

She'd stepped forward so they were level with each over and no matter how much John thought he should back down he was to scared of the glare she raised at him. John nodded and entered McKay's overwrite code into the tablet causing the door to slide open.

"We need to get to the power room to initialise a full power reset,"

Teyla nodded and followed him out.

* * *

I don't think there's any disease, this has got to be some sort of error, if there was a disease we'd have patients by now-"

Ronan was cut off by a distant rumble followed by an explosion. Jennifer looked nervous.

"What was that?"

Ronan looked at her from the corner of his eyes.

"I've been in here with you the whole time why'd you think I know anything else,"

As Ronan turned to look at her another alarm started and Jennifer looked even worse.

"That's they, err self-destruct alarm," Jennifer nodded uncertainly at Ronan for confirmation.

Ronan nodded in kind at Jennifer, he wasn't afraid, he'd been on borrowed time since Sateda fell.

* * *

Sam pounded her fists on the transporter door; Radek lay on the ground beside them passed out.

"This is Colonel Carter can anyone hear me!" Sam shouted for the door, she hated this, after all she'd been through with the Lucian alliance, the Goa'uld and the Ori she absolutely refused to die in a transport under quarantine due to a malfunction.

"Carter, you in there?" Sam heard the voice shout through the door.

Sam called back in an affirmative while getting to her knees and waking Radek up, she sucked in the last lungful of oxygen in the room before dragging Radek's arm over her shoulder while fastening hers to his waist as the door slide open, she sucked in fresh air as Teyla took Radek from her.

"Colonel, how'd you get us out?" Sam saw John holding one of the tablets in his hand, but she knew he' was smarter than he looked but surely he hadn't been able to overwrite the security protocols.

"I just decrypted some of Rodney's back doors into the systems, now if you don't mind ma'am I'd like to get the self-destruct just down before we talk."

Sam nodded seeing his point.

"How long till detonation" Sam was itching for the days she actually carried a side-arm, Radek was trying to get a look at John's tablet as he entered a group of commands.

"The sequence was set for a half an hour, but I've been able to set up an infinite loop in the correlative sequential activations in order to extend that time, but we need to get to the power room to reset the systems."

Sam nodded as they get to a door; she and Radek shared a look before looking back at John.

"I've set up an algorithm to selectively overwrite the quarantine lockdown at selective points, I was able to write the program but it would have triggered the self-destruct, but since that's already on I thought what the hell."

The door slide open and they rushed through while John closed the door at the others questioning look he added. "The quarantine system won't let people roam freely, I have to overwrite it system by section to fool it, if I have two doors open it'll detect us."

* * *

"We have to find some way to lose them," Katana and Laura looked in confusion at the Canadian scientist. "We can't fight off the Asuran ship and we can't run to Atlantis, it'll signal the rest of them and they'll converge on Atlantis like a storm."

Katana nodded.

"We don't have to lose them," everyone turned to look questioningly at Laura. "We know the weapon works, we can mass produce them on Atlantis and this ship has a minimal crew, we could scuttle it and return to Atlantis through the Stargate."

"That's not an option," Katana directed her words solidly at Laura.

"It may be the only way to prevent information falling into enemy hands," it was Rodney who had spoken.

Katana looked solidly at him, just daring him to say anything more, till the engines rumbled and jolted forward.

Laura was immediately out of her seat followed by Katana and Rodney as the moved from the side briefing room to the bridge.

They had once again been brought from hyperspace and the _Avenger _was right behind them, it barely decelerates before firing six drones all on curved paths impacting the cruiser at different points as the _Avenger _rotated 90 degrees on its x-axis moving the side of the ship to face the traveller cruiser bringing all of its energy turrets to bare on the cruiser.

Smoke filled the deck as McKay ducked, he turned back to Katana who was giving orders, McKay turned back to the weapons board. He and Laura struggled to get the Asgard weapons to bear on the _Avenger._ The traveller particle weapons began to fire, red blasts of energy harmlessly collided with the _Avenger's _shields, flashing red as the turrets that lined the side of the ships adjusted their aim before firing again.

"Redirect power to shields and weapons now-" Katana was cut off when the panel next to her exploded; she was thrown to the deck as a conduit fell from the ceiling and fire suppressant leaked onto the deck.

"Rodney, I've got their shields down" Laura shouted as the bridge fell apart.

"Get their hyperdrives down," McKay was at the engineering console its officer lying beside it with a dark crimson mark on his forehead, Laura moved to obey as light fixture overhead gave way raining sparks down. "Laura!?"

But Rodney's concern was for nought as Laura's military instincts had kicked in as she rolled out of the way of the sparks before lunging for the correct crystal and stone on the board.

The traveller ship was in flames as whole areas of ablative armour planed away as orange pulses of death slowly killed the traveller ship by a thousand cuts. The _Avenger's _captain inside the ships neural interface sighed in satisfaction as two blue pulses of plasma hit the aft engines, causing secondary explosions to rush through power conduits as the plasma canons ceased fire and the ship fell out of control.

"They've stopped firing," Laura said a little uncertainly as she reached out to poke Rodney. "We're still here aren't we?"

Rodney nodded in response as he made his way over to her.

"Let's see what we've got huh?"

Rodney nodded as he and Laura made for separate stations.

"Mila, this is the bridge where are our hyperdrives?" Rodney leaned on the command chair as Laura used the normal communications panel to signal a medical

Mila's voice came back garbled.

"They'll be up shortly if you don't mind our safety standards _Dr McKay."_

Rodney sighed regretting his earlier words as a medical team rushed in to take the injured out of the room.

"Rodney the Asurans," Laura reminded McKay as the _Avenger _corrected its rotation as drones exited the bays and began to circle the _Avenger _and built up numbers to swarm.

"Mila I need hyperdrives now! Do whatever you have to do."

McKay moved up to the Asgard weapons panel ready to open fire on the _Avenger._

"Okay Dr Safety standards hyperdrives are back online."

McKay swiftly set the ship to enter the hyperspace tunnel.

The _Avenger's _drones began to head towards the traveller ship in a massive swarm glowing orange in the void of space as it headed to hyperspace.

* * *

Sam, John, Teyla and Zelinka sprinted through the next door as John cancelled the door codes slamming them shut.

"Sam we've got a problem," John looked up from the tablet and handed it over to Sam.

"The self-destruct program is nearly complete,"

Sam altered the data to show the schematics of the tower, they couldn't get to the power room in time.

"We're done," John spoke, he knew without looking that they were out of time and the self-destruct would go off at any time soon.

"No we're not," John turned to look at her.

"There's another way?"

Sam nodded before continuing.

"There's an access shaft that goes down to the power area." Sam walked over to the wall and opened one of the conduit vents to show the way down. "Someone could climb down to get there."

John looked down and was doubtful that anyone could get down.

"I'll go," John turned shocked as Radek stepped forward and looked down the shaft; he held the tablet close to him. "Give me a leg up."

John looked between the shaft entrance and Radek then nodded looking at Sam for confirmation.

"Radek good luck, and if you succeed we'll rub it in to Rodney that you saved the day," Sam smirked at Radek who smiled and nodded.

"Rodney's alright when you look past his faults Colonel." Radek smiled genuinely in response. "Although I wouldn't mind being able to have something over him for once."

"Call me Sam, and when you're done I'll tell him you saved the day yourself." Sam nodded at Radek who climbed up into the shaft and started downwards.

* * *

Rodney once more had a headache, the traveller crew were heavily injured and the ships commanding officer was in a coma leaving no one to take charge, the crew seemed to be okay taking his orders for the time being but to be honest he'd rather let Laura take charge after all this was a military operation. He looked down at his ruined tablet before heading back out to the bridge were Laura was looking after operations.

The bridge had been cleared out of the larger rubble however the floor was covered with small metal fragments.

Rodney saw Laura sorting through the Asgard crystal wafers; she was kneeling down peering into the base of the black Asgard console. Rodney found himself momentarily distracted as she moved out of the console to replace one of the control crystals her hands delicately moving the crystals, her eyes calculating and her red-golden hair trailing gently through the circuitry as she bit her lip in concentration.

Laura had served in the marines since she graduated from college with a highest score possible in her electronics degree, granted Asgard crystalline circuitry was not exactly what she'd studied the overall principles behind it were the same. Plus the training under Colonel, then Major Carter and Dr Jackson had helped during her first stint at the SGC before assignment to Atlantis. Laura picked up one of the spare crystals and gently rotated it in her hands before entering it into the base, all of the wafers lit up as conductivity was achieved. She just noticed as Rodney knelt down beside her, she tried not to notice as he moved his head alongside hers with his hot breath gently moving her hair and sending shivers down her spine.

"Laura, how long till the Asgard weapon is back online?" Rodney gently rotated his head to look at her while moving his hands as if to help with the repairs.

Laura wasn't one to give up on a chance to tease Rodney despite the direness of the situation and he seemed like he needed some messing with, she leant forward so she was whispering in his ear.

"The weapon is near back online _Meredith,_ why do you ask?"

She watched as Rodney shivered and his eyes fluttered shut.

"Well, er…" Rodney felt flustered as he tried to bring his train of thought back. "You are a err… a military officer and this is a delicate scientific matter transposed by a difficult military one given what we know of this situation we should delegate responsibility to our given skills."

Laura blinked briefly before realising exactly what he meant. Laura glanced round the room before turning back to Rodney and leaning once more into his ear.

"Don't you trust them?"

"Their captains in a coma and the senior crew are dead, you're the ranking military officer on the ship, but for some reason they think I should be in charge."

Laura could see his point and once more leaned into his ear, he'd just given her the perfect ammunition. "So you'd rather I gave you orders than the other way around… Interesting."

Rodney rolled his eyes and the corners of his mouth actually quirked up in a smile.

* * *

Radek swore and cursed as he moved through the conduit, he pulled himself down to the last shaft, one that went straight down, he took a deep breath looking down.

"Even getting on Rodney's nerves isn't worth this," He grumbled as he secured the tablet and took the plunge.

* * *

Ronan and Jennifer sat by one of the beds, the self-destruct alarm going off in the background counting inexplicably down to their deaths. Jennifer turned to Ronan.

"Look Ronan, if we don't get out of this there's something I have to do,"

Ronan turned to give her a questioning look as she leant forward and kissed him.

* * *

Radek scrambled down into the power room the ZPM glowing ominously in the nearest corner of the power outlet, the ZPM from the Tria on the ground in a padded box beside the outlet. Radek pulled out a cable from the tablet, it didn't take long, and soon enough the ZPM rose from its placement and the lights and alarms failed, Radek waited about a minute before reinitialising bringing the power back on throughout the city, the quarantine over.

* * *

Laura sat in the command chair on the traveller ship as McKay monitored the systems from an array of myriad consoles.

"We're nearly there,"

Laura looked up at Rodney and smiled.

"It'll be good to be home,"

"And since when has Atlantis been home"

Rodney turned to Laura.

"I don't know when was it home for you?"

Rodney smiled nostalgically at her. "Probably since the moment we arrived in the city, if I had to think about it. Back when we didn't know if it was a one way trip."

Laura smiled back at him as he turned into the navigational panel for the drop out.

* * *

Sam, John and Radek waited in the gateroom as Laura and Rodney were beamed in via the Odyssey, Laura saluted crisply at Carter. Sam and Radek smirked ready to tease the Canadian physicist.

"Well it works, although we barely got away with our lives, to be honest I'd like to get some rest now, here's my report," McKay handed over a data tablet as he left rubbing his eyes.

"Colonel?" Laura asked, Sam nodded in response as she turned and headed out.

* * *

Sometime later Sam was sitting in her office going after a group of files as Laura came in saluting as she entered.

"Ma'am, you wanted to see me?"

Sam nodded gesturing to a seat while opening a wooden box beside her computer.

"I've just got authorisation from Earth to do this." Sam walked forward and gave Laura a pin. "Lieutenant Cadman, it is my duty to offer a battlefield promotion to _Captain, _congratulations."

Laura blinked. "Why me ma'am?"

"Because you have tremendous potential," Sam said quietly. "You think fast and you're brave and practical, but you don't lack imagination. I think you could go a long way. I want to give you the opportunity to test yourself and to have a variety of experiences. That will give you the confidence you need to stand in any company. You're not a kid from Florida State, you're one of the best of the best, I'm not saying you should be arrogant, but you've got two and a half years in Atlantis and before that three years at the SGC."

Sam stood up and Laura followed.

"Congratulations _Captain _Cadman," Sam shook her hand and then they saluted before Laura left her office.

* * *

The commander of the _Avenger _looked up from his damage reports at the stargate activation from the nearby planet, the reading had been confirmed by repeated scans, it was a Lantean who had just arrived on the planet.

He'd sent down three jumpers with guards to secure the area and take whoever it was prisoner.

As the Stargate deactivated Ikaros rose his hands as the Asurans trained their guns on him, he just smirked and pushed his hands forward, telepathically shoving them across the grassland as he raised his right hand calling a storm to the area. Lightning arced into the Asurans, not enough current to destroy them, but enough to disable them as Ikaros sprinted into one of the Jumpers.


End file.
